Cornus scabrida Franch. — Kangding dogwood

Introduction

Kangding dogwood is Tree TSAR’s broad species concept for a difficult southwestern Chinese complex of deciduous shrubs and small trees. Plants typically bear brown to purplish young branches, hairy leaves and inflorescences, white flowers, and dark reddish-purple to black fruit in forests and thickets from about 1100 to 3200 m (Xiang & Boufford 2005; Deasy et al. 2026).

The nomenclature is unusually tangled. Flora of China used the later name C. schindleri, but the earlier C. scabrida has priority if the two are treated as one species. Tree TSAR goes further by including the C. monbeigii name complex within broad C. scabrida, while retaining C. poliophylla as a separate species. This arrangement reflects the current balance of morphology, type history, and phylogenomics, but type-anchored population sampling remains a high-priority test (Lindelof et al. 2020; Du et al. 2023).

Horticultural and Agricultural Uses

Kangding dogwood has reached specialist collections through historic and modern Chinese seed introductions, often under the names C. schindleri or C. monbeigii. Correcting old labels is therefore an important part of horticultural curation (Deasy et al. 2026).

The species is not a major ornamental, and its most useful collection value is taxonomic. Accessions should retain collecting number, locality, and voucher because those records can help connect cultivated plants to the different historical name concepts.

Conservation Concerns

A formal global threat assessment is not currently emphasized for broad C. scabrida. Its wide Chinese range argues against assuming extreme rarity, but the complex taxonomy can obscure the true distribution of particular population lineages. Conserving multiple wild-source accessions across its geographic range is more informative than maintaining a single horticultural clone under a broad name.

Additional Information

Trees and Shrubs Online (opens in a new tab) - Modern account explaining priority, synonymy, and the Chinese species complex.
Plants of the World Online (opens in a new tab) - Accepted Kew record and synonymy.
Flora of China (opens in a new tab) - Regional treatment under the schindleri complex.
2020 phylogenomic study (opens in a new tab) - Evidence for unresolved structure and reticulation in the southwestern Chinese group.

References and Further Reading

Deasy M, Crowley D, Aldridge J, Chişu R (2026) Cornus scabrida. Trees and Shrubs Online. https://www.treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/cornus/cornus-scabrida/ (opens in a new tab)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2026) Cornus scabrida Franch.. Plants of the World Online. https://powo.science.kew.org/results?q=Cornus%20scabrida%20Franch (opens in a new tab)

Xiang Q-Y, Boufford DE (2005) Cornaceae. In: Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) Flora of China 14. Science Press, Beijing & Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, pp. 206-221. https://www.efloras.org/flora_page.aspx?flora_id=2 (opens in a new tab)

Lindelof K, Lindo JA, Zhou W, Ji X, Xiang Q-Y (2020) Phylogenomics, biogeography, and evolution of the blue- or white-fruited dogwoods (Cornus) - insights into morphological and ecological niche divergence following intercontinental geographic isolation. Journal of Systematics and Evolution 58(5): 604-645. https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.12676 (opens in a new tab)

Du Z-Y, Xiang Q-Y, Cheng J, Zhou W, Wang Q-F, Soltis DE, Soltis PS (2023) An updated phylogeny, biogeography, and PhyloCode-based classification of Cornaceae based on three sets of genomic data. American Journal of Botany 110(2): e16116. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.16116 (opens in a new tab)